< I want to trust someone wholeheartedly. BUT I'm not really sure that I will ever be able to do that again. ........>>>>

Rick...yes YOU can feel trust again..it may come fleetingly at first, but REMEMBER those positive feelings........go back to them....remember the sensations when you are calm and feeling secure. use this visulization when you doubt. we certainly all have remembered when we were in the grips of the P...this is the same idea...just in reverse.........easy to say..harder to do...but each repetition strengthens us until we reach a new plateau.

you will slip back...but you are also moving forward.

we all do this...in all learning..whether in 'P land' or any other NEW or limiting/negative situation we want to move throgh.

remember that...as you climb this steep hill, it's not until you look back from time to time that you can really appreciate the distance you have travelled.

The more I learn and observe the less I trust. There seem to be a lot of N's and P's out there. Maybe it is my heightened awareness but it seems epidemic to me. I don't even WANT a relationship right now. I wonder if I EVER will. That phone call a few weeks ago set off the PTSD. . .I'm still suffering from the aftermath.
Sadly,
finished

>>> I have really been in a downward cycle these days.... thinking, obsessing, re-living events. Perhaps it is the way the planets are aligned right now!? Does anyone else feel this way at this moment? <<<

I have been feeling this way in the past few days, too. I had been doing quite well until then. I think it's related to P trying to initiate contact again (or PMS which wouldn't be your issue ).

But the other thing it might be related to is time of year. September of last year was when P started being a real jerk to me. September also has some other negative associations for me and I tend to get in a bit of a funk this time of the year. The holidays often feel like this, too.

I think the mind tries to shield us from the pain of past traumas, but our memory clicks on a date, or time of year, and dredges up the past. I might not realize why I'm in a funk, until I look at the date and realize it's significant in some way. Just an idea about why we start spinning when there doesn't seem to be a good catalyst...

oh boy!! i went through this a long time, still do at times, but i have made a decision through alot of positive reading and acceptance to try and see the good in others UNTIL i am sure otherwise. we can't let 'P tactics' color all the others, although i agree there seem to be alot of very selfish people out there. but even in those people, we can find parts that are good.

we now know about red flags. unlikely to happen this way in severity to us again. so we can move forward, slowly gaining confidence in ourselves. we must if we want a whole life.

Yes, the changing seasons do have something to do with it. And "seasonal memory", so to speak, does come into play. It was exactly one year ago when my P ended his adulation phase with me. This was when I started feeling scattered, unsure,
untrusting, confused.

I'm the type of person that when a new love comes into my life, they become my world. Of course when that person turns out to be "unstable", your world is in chaos.

Over the last few months I've realised that this is probably the problem. I shouldn't require someone else to come into my life and be my world.

I should have my own world, and I can keep that as stable as I like, if the next guy wants to come and visit me in my world, and I care to go an visit him in his world then I think I've a much better chance of holding it together if that person starts acting up. I'll still have my stable world and I won't let that person in anymore.

With that being my latest conclusion, it makes sense that I finally told P to take "a long walk off a short pier" last night ("You're not my world anymore, I've my own world and you are not welcome in it").

He recently went on holiday... but he wouldn't tell me where he was going, instead to stop us arguing about it being ridiculous that he couldn't tell me where he was going on holiday, he decided to "throw" that argument by winding me up on another issue that gets "under my skin".

Well I rumbled him, and told him I just wanted to know how he was doing, he appeared to want to play games with me, well, I had better things to do. Bye.

(I was pretty upset about this.)

He went on holiday and emailed me pretty soon after he got back. I ignored his email. He called me 3 days later, but it wasn't convenient for me to speak to him so I said I would return his call (busy in my world now). When I did, I got his voicemail, so I told him that I was having an emotional day with my family (had been to do probate on my G'fathers will with my very distraught mother), and that maybe we could talk sometime over the weekend.

I eventually spoke to him on Monday. THe conversation went: how are you? (x2) Hope you and your family are well (x2), hope you had a nice holiday, let's get off the phone before we get arguing, bye.

I realise by this point that I'm about to press the "eject button" again. The "again" being the important thing here because I recognise that I feel exactly the same way I felt when I went round "the Cycle" the first time, I can't abide callousness, and its so obvious he just doesn't care how he affects me.

So we get emailing, and I attempt to explain to him the cycle:

> Well maybe we hit on one pointless argument avoidance technique: make a connection between you and a shower and instead of arguing we can observe little brain short circuiting to a non-upsetting picture...

OK, why, on some levels, at some times, does everything other than the banal inquiry induce you to initiate conflict?

For example we managed to talk quite directly and without conflict for a good while before it descended into acrimony, and then we managed it (again) when we met up in March, but now I'm frightened to talk to you (again) because regardless of how I am towards you, you display
aggression towards me, and (again) it appears to be escalating.

I am getting to the point (again) that I will do anything not to feel intimidated ... in other words its driving me away (again).

There does seem to be a pattern to it.

Its like you are different people(?)

What elicits your aggression? >

he wrote back that he only understood about 30% of what I said "and that he was only aggressive when he wasn't on his meds" (which was him being facetious ~ its all a big game to him)

So I said I would draw him a picture... but I pressed him again on why he was always mad at me. And this is what he replied:

>i don't agree that i am mad you all the time
i called you when igot back to apologize for what must have come across as rude when we spoke right before i left (end of august). it wasnt my intention to be rude, but there are things that i rather not discuss with you. c'est ca.>

Now the point here is that, he didn't apologise to me... and if you look further it isn't an apology, its a justification. A justification that he compartmentalises me, and plays games with me, it doesn't even address that what I was really upset about was him winding me up mercilessly (Passive Aggression) or the fact that he's gaslighting, and hypnotising me (only a P would try to throw a serious discussion like this by conjering me into thinking about him and showers). He'd left me anxious that he was so mad at me that he won't even tell me where he's going on vacation for a whole 2 weeks or more, and now, apparantly he's not been mad he's been feeling misunderstood all this time, because he thinks he's been percieved to have been rude (when he was actually rude & contrived) and not for one second did he think well Kate is probably upset, and I can't enjoy my holiday if she's upset.

Because that would be a good reason to apologise, but HE DOESN'T HAVE A CONSCIENCE, so that doesn't even occur to him.

So I was about to tear him off a strip, but a very kind friend of mine who was IMing me at the time told me not to respond to the negative behaviour only the positive behaviour.

So I replied to P that he hadn't apologised to me (because he hadn't!), so he'd best get dialing.

After I sent the email, I realised I was back partaking in his game again... overwhelmed with anxiety, waiting for him to apologise to me for something which I knew he had no intention of apologising to me for, because its not "C'est ca." Its "C'est nobody compartmentalises me in their lives like that and I'm not going to get used to being compartmentalised to the point I'm just an object in his game, a toy to be picked up and played with when it suits him and discarded and treated worse than dirt the rest of the time. If he decides to treat me differently, then he should call me, if he doesn't then I don't need to deal with him."

So I called him, "Saying, I thought I'd save you apologising..."

He burst out in anxious, awkward laughter, so I asked him why he was laughing, he said he would tell me later (I thought but there isn't going to be an after). And then I told him...

And that's were it was left.

He knew I was about to take the high road, hence he attempted an apology (and couldn't even manage that). Its only the second time he's apologised to me, about anything. The other time being when he said he was sorry for treating me so poorly that I left him (the last time).

And you know... I felt so much better last night... he even slipped out of my consciousness on occasions, and I slept like a baby.

Now the only mistake I haven't made is inviting him into my world... and I think on that count we need to regard Ps like Vampires, if you invite them in you are rendered powerless. That's what I'm going to concentrate on from here on in. Not inviting creatures of the night into my world.

Rick if your feeling low, you need to invest some time in your world (Quality self-adminsiterd T.L.C. time), whatever takes your fancy. Forget that P, its time to move on.

I'm so glad you've made the break. It really is the only way - to stand back from it and get your head clear, and start normal living again. Otherwise the mind games just never, ever stop and you sink deeper and deeper into confusion.

Yes, that is exactly how P's behave. Once we are on to their games it is difficult to have a level-headed, reasonable, converstaion.... not to mention mutually caring, concerned, introspective (ha! that's a good one!). I think that is why so many of us spiral in the first place. We now have the key to the mystery and we re-live, re-think, re-experience the various situations and drama's over and over again. "How could I have not seen what was right in front of my eyes."

Your post was a wonderful example of just how, even if you are aware, one cannot have a meaningful interaction with a P . It is also a wonderful example of just how one can get sucked into their game. So thank you for taking the time to write it all down.

Yes, I appreciate your advice. It is something that I have heard from several people recently..... it is important that I take time for myself. Funny, during the very last conversation that I had with my P (last February) he said to me in his rage over my having blown his cover..."when are you just going to forget about me and get on with it?!"